Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  The front door opened and closed, quietly. Kerim got up from the kitchen table and went to greet his guest, silently. Sinem had finally got to sleep and neither of them wanted to wake her. Kerim took Pembe Hanım through to his small lounge and shut the door behind him.

  ‘It’s madness out there,’ Pembe said as she threw her large straw hat on the sofa beside her. ‘But brilliant. Everybody’s had enough. It’s a big “fuck you” to all the politicians and developers. Now they’ll have to listen.’

  ‘You think so?’ He went over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room and took out two glasses and a bottle. ‘Whisky?’

  ‘To celebrate? Why not?’ she said. ‘Mind you, for you I suppose all this is worrying, isn’t it?’

  ‘Gezi?’ He poured the whisky, gave her a glass and sat down. ‘Officially I’m dead against it. Unofficially . . . I don’t have to tell you.’

  She smiled. She was a tall woman with very long tanned legs made to look even more impressive by sky-high heels. Pembe was slim and blonde, albeit out of a bottle, and handsome rather than beautiful. ‘Going to be difficult for you to be on the right side of history, boy,’ she said. She frowned. ‘Why did you join the police?’

  He smiled. ‘I needed a job and I’m good in a scrap, as you know. It was this or work with Dad, and even this is better than that.’

  ‘You got lucky when you got the job with İkmen.’

  He watched her light a cigarette and wished that she would offer him one. But she wouldn’t. He’d given up. ‘I’d rather someone hadn’t had to die for me to get my opportunity,’ he said. ‘You know the old man still mourns Farsakoğlu.’

  Pembe shrugged. ‘And yet it was Süleyman who was fucking her,’ she said. ‘Then he went back to Gonca Şekeroğlu the gypsy. He broke Farsakoğlu’s heart. She didn’t care whether she lived or died. Her friend Nar Hanım – you know, the great big tall trans girl who worked with the police sometimes . . .’

  ‘Sort of, yes.’

  ‘She told her to ditch him, but she wouldn’t.’

  Kerim shook his head. ‘It’s his business,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to work with him.’

  Pembe drank. ‘Sounds like you don’t like him.’

  ‘I’m indifferent.’

  She shrugged.

  He changed the subject. ‘Sinem had a bad day,’ he said. ‘I think the pain together with the noise from the street wore her out. She’s asleep now.’

  ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘Are you staying over or . . .?’

  ‘If she’d like that.’

  ‘To see you in the morning? You know she’d love it,’ he said.

  ‘And you?’ She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m working my way through the contacts of a possible murder victim,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, the one found in the Hippodrome.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got to make an early start in the morning. If you slip in bed beside her later, you won’t wake her. She’s drugged.’

  When he said it, he looked sad. Pembe leaned across his lap and took one of his hands in hers. ‘She has to be,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  And then she kissed him. It was a long, deep kiss that aroused him. When it was over, Pembe said, ‘Do you want it?’

  He didn’t even bother to reply. He didn’t have to. Her long, manicured fingers unzipped his fly and she took him in her hand. He sighed.

  He’d been in early middle-age at the time of his death which, she reckoned by experience and by eye, had to be at least forty years ago. He’d also suffered a lot with his teeth, but he’d had some complicated dentistry too. He had crowns and bridges and there was evidence that at least four teeth had been root filled. He’d not just been ‘anyone’; he’d had money and maybe even position too.

  Dr Sarkissian had told the police but they wouldn’t open their files until they had a more accurate date than ‘about forty years ago’. They, like Dr Aylın Akyıldız, were waiting for the carbon fourteen dating tests to be completed.

  Aylın covered the male skeleton and turned to the remains that, for the last six months, had become her passion. This was incomplete – just a skull, some vertebrae, a pelvis and one femur – but it was when it had been dated and what it had been found with that fascinated her.

  Carbon-dated to between the 1450s and ’60s, it came from the era of the Turkish Conquest, which had taken place in 1453. When Mehmet the Conqueror had finally entered the city of Constantinople on 29 May 1453 this man could very well have been alive. However, if the sword that had been found at his side was anything to go by then he wasn’t a Turk. The fact that it was crested with the double-headed eagle of the Byzantines meant that he was probably a Christian and of some standing. Not only that, but the sword was lacking what had been a considerable cluster of jewels on the hilt. It was still possible to see where the gems had been hacked and smashed out of their settings and in one case an emerald had left a few slivers of itself behind. If the sword had belonged to the middle-aged man it had been found lying beside, then who had he been?

  Suddenly deflated, Aylın sat down. The skeleton had been found in one of the few gardens that remained at the foot of the city walls in Edirnekapı. The archaeologist who had discovered it had asked her to date it and Aylın had become close to her. And although Dr Ariadne Savva had views on the body that Aylın found fanciful, she had liked her and had been horrified to learn of her death. She hadn’t known anything about Ariadne’s pregnancy. They had simply spent time together with the skeleton which had absorbed many days and nights of their lives. Aylın believed that he was probably a Byzantine soldier, many of whom had died at the walls in defence of the city. But because of the jewelled sword and, possibly, because she was a Greek herself, Ariadne had speculated that perhaps ‘he’ was Constantine XI Palaiologos, last emperor of the Byzantines. Legend had it that he had died fighting the Turks at the city walls although his body and, more significantly for the Turks at the time, his fantastically valuable crown had never been found. Greek nationalists were fond of the legend that Constantine had not died but been turned into a marble statue that was buried underneath the Golden Gate awaiting the day when the city was recaptured by Christians again.

  Aylın had tried to curtail Ariadne’s excitement. She only shared her thoughts with her, or so she said. But it had been difficult to calm Ariadne down. Although she wouldn’t go into detail, she was convinced that ‘Byzantium is coming back to life’. She was thrilled, and although Aylın couldn’t get her to go into any sort of detail, she suspected that this belief was based on more than just one incomplete skeleton from Edirnekapı.

  In the morning she’d have to tell the police all about Ariadne’s beliefs and assertions, such as they had been. Eventually she’d have to share Ariadne’s find with the Archaeological Museum.

  Yiannis puffed on his cigarette and then handed it to Hakkı. They stood outside the gates to the Negroponte house in what would usually have been the quiet of the night, but the sound of car horns and voices were drifting across the city that night. They both knew where they were coming from, but neither of them spoke about it.

  Yiannis looked up at the stars. ‘Ahmet Öden will never get this house,’ he said.

  ‘He mustn’t,’ the old man said. ‘But I fear he will.’

  ‘We’re never leaving.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to leave?’

  Yiannis looked into Hakkı’s watery brown eyes. ‘Why would I?’ he said. ‘Nothing has changed. Not with the house.’

  Hakkı smoked and said nothing.

  Yiannis said, ‘You still doubt me, don’t you? Don’t try to say that you don’t.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Yiannis turned his head away.

  ‘Remember what happened to Madam,’ Hakkı said. ‘And what didn’t happen to me. They beat her until she passed out. Smashed her head in. Nikos Bey they kicked and stabbed to death. How could a child escape a mob like that?’

  ‘I did.’

 
‘Because a Turkish couple saved you? Why would they do that? I was there in 1955, and the Turks’ blood was up—’

  ‘Yours wasn’t.’

  ‘Only because I knew my duty to this family,’ Hakkı said. He finished his cigarette. ‘Who you are, I don’t know, but you have a fight on your hands with Ahmet Öden and his kind. They run the world these days and there’s nothing your magic tricks can do to change that.’

  ‘He’s offered me a ridiculous price that no one in his right mind would accept. Not that I’d accept any price,’ Yiannis said.

  ‘Well don’t expect any price,’ Hakkı said. ‘Because his offer is his offer and that will be that.’

  ‘People are protesting about redevelopment,’ Yiannis said.

  ‘Yes, and they will live to regret it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, as I told you, those people like Ahmet Öden run everything. The people in the park, do they have guns? No. Öden and his people have the guns because they have the police. But to be honest I don’t care. I’m too old to care. All I live for now are my family and Madam Anastasia. All the doctors may say her brain is damaged but I know her better. I know that if she lost this house it would kill her.’

  ‘She’s not going to lose the house. I told you, I—’

  ‘No, I will save it!’ Hakkı raised a finger up to Yiannis’ face. ‘When all is done and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, I will save the Negroponte house.’

  Yiannis shook his head, finally tired of being put down. ‘Without me? You’ll be able to do nothing, old man,’ he said. ‘You’ve been able to do nothing.’ He walked back through the gates and into the house.

  Chapter 7

  Peri Mungun had to go around the park to get to work but she couldn’t pass by. The police had moved in on the demonstrators some time before she arrived and were using tear gas and water cannon. People were everywhere. Some were soaking wet and unconscious while others stumbled around coughing, their eyes streaming from the effects of the tear gas. She helped a young woman in a headscarf get out of the immediate area and then bathed her eyes with water from her drinking bottle.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman asked as she tried to open her eyes.

  ‘I’m a nurse,’ Peri said. ‘Let me open your eyes, don’t try to do it yourself. Who are you with?’

  Peri held the woman’s eyes open and poured. The woman whimpered.

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ Peri said. ‘Look, howl if you need to. It’s OK. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m with Muslims against Capitalism,’ she said. For a moment she panted. Then she continued, ‘We don’t want this park or any other park to disappear. We don’t want any more shopping malls.’

  Peri pulled the woman to the top of İstiklal Caddesi and sat her down on the ground.

  ‘You’ll be all right now,’ she said.

  A young girl with her hair in dreadlocks appeared. She squatted down beside the woman in the headscarf then she looked up at Peri. ‘Tear gas.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve bathed her eyes,’ Peri said. ‘I’m a nurse.’

  ‘A nurse? Shit, we need you,’ the girl said.

  ‘I’m on my way to work.’

  ‘Work? This is the biggest social demonstration in this country for decades and you’re worried about going to work?’

  ‘I’ve got patients who need me,’ Peri said.

  ‘Where’d you work? At the Taksim?’

  ‘No, at the German Hospital.’

  The girl snorted. ‘Where all the rich people go? Fuck them.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, but I need that job,’ Peri said.

  The girl, all dreadlocks and Goth gear, was beginning to irritate her. She spoke well, dressed and swore as she pleased. She probably came from one of those elite secular families the current government were so hacked off by. Now, for different reasons, Peri was too.

  ‘You might not need a job, but I do,’ she said.

  ‘So lie,’ the girl said. ‘Call in sick. Look, if you’re a nurse—’

  ‘Please do it,’ the woman on the ground said. ‘This young lady is so right. We’re all here together because we oppose the exploitation of our city. Doesn’t matter if we’re Muslims, Christians, secular people, Socialists, gay people, gypsies. Nurse, you’re not rich, you can’t be happy about all the money these property developers are making out of ordinary folk. If we want to change things we have to make an effort to do something.’

  ‘I do something every day,’ Peri said. ‘I look after sick people.’

  She began to walk away.

  She heard the girl say, ‘You’ll regret this.’

  But it had no effect on her. Someone with designer dreadlocks was not going to put her on a guilt trip.

  Then she heard the woman’s voice. ‘There are people still in the park, being gassed.’

  And Peri knew it was true. Looking over towards Gezi she could see a vast plume of smoke rising out of the trees. She also heard people screaming. Without help they could fall over and cause untold damage to themselves. Even distant proximity to tear gas was making her eyes sting. But if she could be there for people when they came out of the epicentre at least she’d be able to help. Peri turned back, soaked her headband in water and put it over her mouth.

  Yiannis didn’t hear a thing until Hakkı burst into his bedroom, his face white, his eyes staring.

  ‘Look out of the window!’ he yelled. ‘Look out now!’

  With a flourish he pulled Yiannis’ bedroom curtains to one side and said, ‘Come and look, man!’

  Yiannis Negroponte wasn’t an early riser. He looked at his clock – it was seven a.m. – before he staggered out of bed and went to the window.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There! There!’

  Hakkı pointed but he hadn’t needed to. The bulldozer outside the front gates was one of the biggest Yiannis had ever seen and, although it clearly wasn’t going anywhere, it was surrounded by a group of men who looked as if they wanted to get it on the move.

  ‘Fuck! Is that—’

  ‘Öden! I told you he wouldn’t give up,’ Hakkı said.

  Yiannis threw a pair of trousers on over his pyjamas and ran down the stairs and out of the house. Arriving at the front gate he saw Ahmet Öden at the back of the crowd of men around the bulldozer and he called him out.

  ‘Öden! What do you think you’re doing?’

  The developer, resplendent in a fine Italian suit, came forward and smiled. ‘Merely making the point that if you take my offer I am ready to take possession of this land immediately,’ he said.

  ‘Oh really? I’ve told you I don’t want to sell.’

  ‘In case you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘I haven’t and I won’t.’

  Yiannis noticed that a few police officers stood behind Öden’s men and he began to feel afraid. In some other parts of the city where residents had ‘resisted change’ they had been forcibly evicted. Was that going to happen here? Surely it couldn’t. He hadn’t agreed to sell the house.

  ‘Well, we’re here. Ready.’

  Yiannis looked at the men and vehicles outside his house. On the right side of the Negroponte house was an empty piece of land and then another house that was almost identical. To the left was a smaller building on a larger plot of land.

  ‘Why do you want this house so much, Öden?’ Yiannis asked. ‘Why not this one, or this?’

  He pointed to his neighbours. He hadn’t thought about this before but now that he did it made him wonder whether Öden somehow knew more than he was letting on about the property.

  ‘I want to build a hotel,’ Öden said. ‘I’ve explained this. The best hotel in the city.’

  ‘So why not build it where the Alans’ place is on the corner?’ Hakkı said. ‘It’s more prominent and it will be easier for taxis and buses to park down the side of the building.’

  Öden’s face reddened. ‘I don’t want the Alans’ place, I want this one!’ he
said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s perfect for . . . Because I do! I want the Negroponte House, all right? Now, money. What will it take . . .?’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Yiannis said. ‘We’re not selling. I’ve told you before and I’m telling you again.’

  Ahmet Öden, his fist up to his mouth, paused for a moment and then he said, ‘Then we’ll have to wait until you do choose to sell, won’t we?’

  ‘We won’t sell.’

  ‘Yes, but if you do—’

  ‘This is intimidation,’ Hakkı said. ‘Come, Mr Negroponte, we must call the police.’

  Öden laughed. ‘What for? I’ve got the police here if you want to speak to them.’

  Hakkı looked at the uniformed officers standing behind Öden and said, ‘Those? Some kids in blue? No, I mean the real police.’

  ‘These are the—’

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  Hakkı pulled Yiannis inside the house and picked up the phone.

  ‘We can’t have the police here! We can’t! And how can we call the police when we’ve got them supporting Öden on our doorstep?’ Yiannis wasn’t hysterical but he was close.

  Hakkı dialled. ‘Because we are calling Inspector İkmen,’ he said.

  Yiannis shook his head. ‘Who?’

  ‘Fatma Hanım’s husband from Ticarethane Sokak,’ Hakkı said. Then, seeing that Yiannis still didn’t get it, he said, ‘Çetin Bey, the homicide detective.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes, I know but . . . Oh no! Ah, but isn’t he the one who—’

  Hakkı held a hand up to silence him. Then he said into the phone, ‘Can I speak to Inspector İkmen, please?’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘Yes, I’ll hold.’

  Yiannis sat down, shaking a little. İkmen. They’d conversed once in the street just after one of Yiannis’ magic shows. Before Yiannis had been born, İkmen and his brother had visited the Negroponte house with their mother. She’d been some sort of seer who Anastasia had consulted to read tarot cards for her. İkmen had talked about his visits with great affection and Yiannis had wondered if he’d been trying to get an invitation into the house. He had wondered sometimes what the policeman remembered from those days. What he did know was that he worked in homicide. He was working on a case that was all over the media. Quite rightly.